OHL: Company Profile

In 1912, a one-year-old construction company completed its first job ? two docks in the Port of Lisbon. It was a fitting beginning for Sociedad General de Obras y Construcciones Obrascon, a Spanish company based in Bilbao, but determined to succeed in the international market. Over the years, it sought and met the challenges of increasingly complex work that included highways, airports and hospitals. Coordinating the finance, engineering, architecture, design, construction, maintenance and operations demanded by such large-scale projects became a company specialty.

In the late 1990s, Obrascon, now one of Spain?s most dynamic companies, merged with two similarly vibrant construction firms. Huarte, established in Pamplona by the Huarte and Malumbres families in 1927, joined forces with Obrascon in 1998. This merger made Obrascon Huarte the sixth-largest construction company in Spain. In the following year, the firm welcomed the final piece of OHL, Construcciones Lain. Established in 1963 as a subsidiary of the British group John Laing Construction, Construcciones Lain (dropping the g) had been an independent company since1988.

The union of three firms with compatible strengths and ideals, OHL is established in sixteen countries on four different continents. Their work ranges from a seawater desalinization plant in Lanzarote, Spain, to the Spanish Pavilion for Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany. From the vast Algar Dam in Valencia, Spain to the gleaming, high-tech Nuevo Hospital Santa Cristina in Madrid. From the instant city of the Irian Jaya Complex in Indonesia (which includes a port, airport installations, a light-industrial park and housing, designed for the mineworkers of Gasberg) to the voluptuous gilding and neoclassical decorations of the restored Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.

Now based in Madrid, OHL has 11,000 employees and an impressive rate of growth in its second century. In 2003, its net sales amounted to more than two billion Euros, a growth of 30 per cent since 1997. At the same time, OHL is strongly committed to environmental responsibility and in 2003 produced its first Sustainable Development Report. As Juan-Miguel Villar Mir, the chairman of the board of directors and the author of the report, noted, mindful attention to the long-term health of the environment creates a ?virtuous circle? that benefits the company, its clients and the globe.

OHL?s ecological diligence has served it well in Mexico, where strong government regulations are enforced to protect the environment. A presence in Mexico since 1980, OHL employs 280 people there and has built highways, bridges, hotels and hospitals. The tourism complex at Mayakoba, which will eventually include two or three golf courses and six luxury hotels, is OHL?s most ambitious hospitality project to date.

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